Description
Te nave nave fenua (Delightful Land) – the winged creature at her ear
The middle of the canvas is taken by a standing nude figure with golden-brown skin and long dark hair. With her right hand she reaches up to a red flower on a bush, while her left arm stays at her side. She stands on brown-red ground, and her feet are painted unusually large and firmly planted. At the lower left grow large flowers with round patterned centres. Behind rises dark blue-green foliage, and on the right, at the figure’s shoulder, sits a small dark lizard-like animal with strikingly red wings. Below, across the ground, the title Te nave nave fenua is painted, and beside it the signature with the year. The work is held by the Ohara Museum of Art in Japan.
The animal the museum record does not mention
The winged creature at the ear is the most unusual detail on the canvas, and yet the museum record we were able to read says not a word about it. The record gives title, painter, year, technique and measurement, and nothing more. So we describe it here and do not interpret it: we see a dark body, short legs and two red wings, and we make no claim about what it is meant to mean.
The arm reaching for the flower
The whole figure is built around a single gesture: the raised right hand stretching towards the red flower. The body turns slightly with it, the shoulder lifts, the hips stay still. Because the movement is caught just before the touch, the scene is neither rest nor action but the moment before it.
A ground that is not green
The earth under the figure is not grassy but brown-red and in places violet, divided into large patches of colour. This warm ground lifts the golden skin of the figure and separates her from the cool blue-green foliage behind. Colour here does not describe the earth; it places the figure in space.
How a hand-painted reproduction is made
Every reproduction here is hand-painted in oil on canvas, stroke by stroke. In this motif the skin is the hardest part: the golden brown must stay even across the whole body, or the figure breaks into light and dark pieces. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval.
- Subject: a standing figure reaching for a red flower, a small winged animal at her shoulder.
- Technique: oil on canvas, warm red-brown ground and cool dark foliage.
- Sizes: portrait format, from 40 x 50 cm to 160 x 200 cm; 72 x 90 cm and 87 x 110 cm are often chosen.
- Of note: the title is painted into the picture itself, along the lower edge.
If the same period interests you, see also Mahana no atua (Day of the God), Te arii vahine (The King’s Wife) and Fatata te Miti (By the Sea). The museum record gives the measurement as height by width: 91.3 x 72.1 cm.
